One year ago this week, we launched Diablo III in over 10 languages and 30 countries around the world. Since then, we've made significant improvements to the game, shipping upwards of 15 patches and implementing numerous hotfixes to make your battle against the forces of the Burning Hells that much more epic.

In celebration of Diablo III's anniversary, we wanted to take a look at the road so far -- recapping some of the major changes made to the game since release and providing players quick access to all the latest updates.
(If you haven't played in a while or are new to the realm of Sanctuary, definitely stay a while and listen.)

- PARAGON LEVELS -

When a hero reaches level 60, experience earned from quests, monsters, and massacre bonuses will begin to count toward Paragon levels. There are 100 Paragon levels in total, and each level will reward players with a permanent bonus to Gold Find and Magic Find, as well as core stat increases (Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Vitality). For every 10 Paragon levels, players will also earn a new hero portrait border which will display in the in-game party frame. This border will not only become more impressive as you level up, it will also display your Paragon level in any place where your normal hero level is shown.

For more information on Paragon levels, click here or check out the game guide.

- INFERNAL MACHINE -

The Infernal Machine is a device that will allow level 60 players to battle "uber" versions of some of Sanctuary’s most nefarious bosses. While the rewards for defeating these bosses will be great, some assembly is required. Only the most powerful Nephalem can unlock the secrets to building the Infernal Machine, but once forged the device can be used to open portals to special encounters featuring not one, but two bosses which have been augmented from their original versions, both in terms of difficulty and appearance. Defeating each boss pair will provide players with extra items and gold, as well as a chance to find components for a new Legendary: the Hellfire Ring!

In patch 1.0.4, we made significant changes to Legendary items to make them more powerful, more memorable, and ultimately more fun to use. Through the addition of spell procs, many Legendary items now have a chance to activate rare and unique abilities, such as summoning an angel to fight with you, conjuring an icy projectile, or igniting the very ground you walk on. Legendary items are also far and away more powerful, possessing higher damage and affix values than their predecessors. In addition, many Legendary items have had visual effects added to their original models, giving them a distinct and detailed flair.

For those who wish to test their mettle against fellow Nephalem, head on over to the Scorched Chapel! This zone can be accessed by speaking with Nek the Brawler in any of the four Act hubs, and supports 2 to 4 players in a Free-For-All format.

Similar to the "Players X" command in Diablo II, Monster Power is a system designed to give players more control over how challenging enemies are in each difficulty. With this system, players can choose to increase the health and damage of monsters according to different "power levels" and in return they'll receive scaling bonuses to experience as well as boosts to Magic Find and Gold Find which will stack above the 300% cap. The option to increase Monster Power is available to all players starting at level 1 in the Quest Selection window, and can be adjusted separately for Normal, Nightmare, Hell, and Inferno difficulties.

In patch 1.0.8, we made several improvements to the multiplayer experience in Diablo III, including a special bonus for multiplayer games that grants +10% Magic Find, Gold Find, and Experience for each additional player in the party, combat alerts for whenever a player is engaged with an Elite monster or treasure goblin, multi-user conversations (a new chat option that allows players to chat privately with up to 98 of their friends), and matchmaking tags for Public Games.

These changes focused on buffing existing social features, making it easier for players to find one another online, and providing bonuses when playing in our cooperative mode.

More demons, more fun! As of patch 1.0.8, players in Inferno difficulty at Monster Power 1 and higher will find an increased number of enemies across Acts I, II, and IV. By adjusting density in these areas, all four Acts should now be more comparable in terms of difficulty vs. reward, giving players more options for farming (and more monsters on which to enact their revenge).

why exactly are they trying so hard to prove us that this 1st year the Diablo 3 had some very significant "improvements" and work done on it???? why? so that we can telll them bravo for not having all this out of the box when the game was released one year ago?

because that's the way someone realistically should see this! that all this problems and missing feature took 1 damn year extra and was not in the game to make it interesting in the first place and thinking that they have been working on it for so many years without making up their mind, makes you more upset!

Diablo 3 is in a "OK" state today regarding its gameplay because of the fans and only their ideas!
The team in the time spend failed! the producers the designers had no idea what they where doing, and sure lots of cool features where killed for the PS4 release on the way.

you can see that Diablo 3 was rushed during its final year or so from the way the storyline goes and the content in the acts!

from 10 ----> 3! thats the score and taste you have when you are progressing!

so there is nothing to "celebrate" when it comes to rushing a game (because of the moron fans pushing them and the activision stock market).

why exactly are they trying so hard to prove us that this 1st year the Diablo 3 had some very significant "improvements" and work done on it???? why? so that we can telll them bravo for not having all this out of the box when the game was released one year ago?

I dont undrestand.. you dont like the game??? or you just dont like progress lines?
It is something to be proud of. to provide so much service globally to every region on earth and provide content/balance/and changes for a whole year.. thats pretty epic. No matter how butthurt you are about w/e ur upset, it is pretty epic.

why exactly are they trying so hard to prove us that this 1st year the Diablo 3 had some very significant "improvements" and work done on it???? why? so that we can telll them bravo for not having all this out of the box when the game was released one year ago?

because that's the way someone realistically should see this! that all this problems and missing feature took 1 damn year extra and was not in the game to make it interesting in the first place and thinking that they have been working on it for so many years without making up their mind, makes you more upset!

Diablo 3 is in a "OK" state today regarding its gameplay because of the fans and only their ideas!
The team in the time spend failed! the producers the designers had no idea what they where doing, and sure lots of cool features where killed for the PS4 release on the way.

you can see that Diablo 3 was rushed during its final year or so from the way the storyline goes and the content in the acts!

from 10 ----> 3! thats the score and taste you have when you are progressing!

so there is nothing to "celebrate" when it comes to rushing a game (because of the moron fans pushing them and the activision stock market).

thats all.

Get over yourself.

This game has improved since the first day a lot. Your post is meaningless. If you're mad about the game, don't play it. Why are you still on a forum about a game you shouldn't play?

its pathetic how some users, are so narrow minded that from 1post they try to come into a single conclusion
if i like or not the game! and that should "allow" me or not to post my thoughts on the forums....@to those users, go "reproduce" your selfs guys.

a post can be thoughts in words, and not only one conclusion can come out of them! (black or white)

i like the game as it is NOW and i want more from it! i dont like the fact that it was released a year earlier without them,(the changes) or they wasted their time on other BS! thats what i dont like!

celebrating one year of extensive tries to fix the Game Design problems its annoying!
the game suffers from serious storyline, progression and non original game mechanics, or evolution of them, that will make it fun to play over and over again!
i lost interest in this game very fast after i finished it once, even thought they say you have to play to all difficulty levels to see the full game its bad design!

its like they are telling you "hey you finished? you didnt like it that much?, ok do it again 3-4 times all over and you will like it more i promiss!"

wtf?

i finished the game i didnt like it i am done! you have to convince the player to return to the game and keep playing since day one! not after they finished it!??? you give your best impression in the beginning not at the end!

Diablo 3 and Generaly Game Progression it shoudl be like buying a new car

you go to a dealer because you are intrested in it for a good test drive!
the dealer tries to tell you ALL teh best feature and options this car has the momment he starts to talk!
the car it self (and the driver) should try to give you the BEST impression possible from the 1st time!

not after you are gone, by telling you, "hey the test drive may sucked a bit, BUT if you buy it in time we will make it better!!!!"

WTF?? will you eve buy such a car if someone told you that??
i dont think so.

why are we buying games then like Diablo 3?

one word! HOPE!

we Hope that this will be epic, we hope this will be a great continuation of current story line of this amazing fransize
we hope.......and they take advantage of that hope, like stupid voters in elections!

find my comment 1 year ago, i said, "sure this game after a year or so, will be much better" but this is how the game SHOULD have been already since last year!
and dont give me that crap, we should be thankfull they are doing that, and we are influencing the game from all over the world, HELLO!!!!??? this is the 2013 this is the internet this is why they get paid, to make products WE LIKE!
why should i be thanking them for fixing their bugs? their mistakes? for adding content they should have on the first place?

don't get me wrong, i like all those, but not to worship them as they wish for doing it!
and patches is one thing, you can fix a lot of stuff, but you cant fix the damn fucked up story line, the basic game designs!

throwing at you a billion monsters filling up your screen with object where you cant target anything or click anything, its NOT how you make a game "better"!

like it or not that's my opinion, that happens to be the same among many mature gamers with good understanding of marketing and design experiences!

and for conclusions
for God's (if there is one) name, even them self admit their mistakes when they leave the company!
until then "bla bla bla Blizzard is right, you are wrong, we know what we do, bla bla bla" they kicked out from the company or they "quite", like Jay Wilson, and then they open their moth telling the truth, and what they really had in their minds back then!
"real money AH sucked blab bla bla"

posting only positive comments when there is more negatives to post, its wrong!
we are not helping the developers by sucking their @@ in thanks and other similar BS!
we are helping them by been hard on them, criticism realistic, true to our self and belives, and speak up our minds! that how they may take some into consideration and try to avoid it next time.

I can agree with your sarcastic remark, to some extent. But on the other hand, the last two important patches that vastly improved the gameplay experience, 1.0.5 and 1.0.8, came seven months apart. That is just too much time not to lose a whole lot of players, especially with the PvP fiasco that happened in the meantime. 1.0.7 did make crafting semi-relevant again, but MP levels and monster density are both on the whole other level of complexity and importance for the future of the game. Adding a few crafting plans and a new crafting material is really not that big of a change even though it certainly is a welcome one.

With that being said, D3 feels much better than it did a year ago, without a doubt. There is no reason not to look forward to the future and what it holds in store for this game.

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"Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the small death that brings total obliteration."

The Rune system was an actual new/improved feature , along the lines of going beyond just the current gem system for d2. It added a stronger economy and customization that was fun and rewarding. If diablo 1 had a gem and rune system (or any game for that matter), then yes your point would be valid. You cant pick out a feature that was actually new to gaming, and use it as a "Burn!" to protect a game that came out 10+ years later with less features than its predecessor.

If Diablo 2 had come out with less features and inspiring mechanics / design than diablo 1 , we wouldn't have a leg to stand on. Sure Diablo 1 and Diablo 2 play different aesthetically, but where D2 branched off into its own game it actually inovated and improved on the franchise and gaming as a whole. D3 plays out just like Dungeon Siege 3 did with its franchise, It gutted the core mechanics of the game, added some "pretty graphics" and voiceover / cutscenes , and tanked. You dont go from Dungeon Siege 1 to 2 and then make 3 and play the "its the same game experience" card, just like Diablo 3.

What inspiring features has Diablo 3 introduced in comparison to Diablo 2, or gaming as a whole?

Its multiplayer is worse: less players per game, no real game creation customization (Even just having a naming system works better than having 3-4 static dropdown options that are vague for their intended use), the chat system still isnt on par with Bnet 1.0 standards, and Bnet as a whole still isnt on par with Bnet 1.0 (another example of how they didnt improve or inovate..they just made a glorified sequal).

Its loot system? How often did people find items in Diablo 3 that made them excited? They had to devote an entire patch (praising it as one of the major improvements in their timeline) to improving legendaries, and they still didnt get it right. Game now has weapon lots of fun weapon procs! Diablo 2 did it..and did it better. They have to do the same thing with the entire item system revamp in the future. Have they even mentioned set items yet? No. Dont even get me started on the magic find system for D3, and how they went out of their way to gut it from items and introduce hard caps.

The economy? Yea, gold use to be worthwhile at the beginning of diablo 2 too, and just like diablo 3 its become a worthless currency. SoJ were no better in that regard, but they were still a great currency because they had a physical space value, you couldnt just store an infinite supply of them on a single character, this curbed inflation quite a bit, and even so there was an actual bartering system in place, where items had actual values and worth. Inflation wasnt an issue after SoJ because you could trade dirrectly with the gear, so it didnt matter how many SoJs they were worth, the worth of a piece of gear never fluctuated to the extremes that we have in Diablo 3 with item revamps, introducing new "uber" item crafts, gems, etc. Like its an MMO.

Did the gameplay improve? It still plays like diablo. I dont see the real issue with having a limited selection of skills in comparison to the previous 2 games. Sure it stiffles creativity a bit and doesnt allow the player to be flexible on the go, but its true that at most points we only ever used a handful of skills at a time. The fluid looking and feel to combat is definitely improved, theres not a single point of inovation to the combat, but i dont feel like we regressed at all either.

How about customization? Yea...thats a pretty dead horse. I wont get into that.

Music...pow pow my ears? Ill be honest, after a while it all rather bleeds together to me because of how atmostpheric it has always been, so it makes great background music. All 3 of the games were good in this regard. No inspiring music that gets stuck in my head all day, and nothing that warrents a plethora of covers to be made on youtube, but that just goes along with blizzard sound scores, very mellow. Although I still can hum the tristram town music on queue, I blame diablo 1 for that.

New features! ...? Monster power was already done in diablo 2 with ' /players x ' as well as automatically via more players in multiplayer. Diablo 3 had part of that system in play at start, minus any bonuses players would recieve, and the ability to control it.

Mob density was never a problem in diablo 1 or two, but that was mostly because the focus was on bosses, cow level, chests and named mobs for loot. XP "sweet spots" was always based on your level, and every mob had its value, ignoring cow lvl powerleveling.

Multiplayer improvements, we're talking about adjusting the game numbers to make it feel more fun, thats just balance work. New chat channel? Go back to Bnet 1.0 example. Drop down menus for game preverences? Same as last sentence, been there done that.

PvP? .........

I mean, we could go on an on about this, but it comes down to blizzard cut out a lot of the game, or didnt have the time to implement/finish it. They had already scrapped the original version before too, and did some drastic changes in beta that were very "questionable / controversial" to players. For the last year they have been playing "catch-up" with the games "release" , that was delayed, delayed, revamped, and delayed. Sure they added quite a bit to the game since last year, but as others have said, this is stuff that SHOULD have been in the game in the beginning before it was released.

This wasnt content that shouldnt have been expected to be there, this isnt entitlement, these are core items that make the game function and even make the game fun. There was no "rune system" likeness introduced in the last year, or any feature for that matter that comes close to an actual inovation, other than the infernal machine and paragon levels, and those are just a different form of crafting with rehashed monsters as hoops and a very boring tacked on newgame+ . Theres nothing inspring about either of those two, but hopefully paragon gets the love that blizzard says it "wants to do" sooner or later. Oh, and speaking of infernal machine, Diablo 2 it it first and better, so i take that back. But hey, i do enjoy the "heirloom" quality of the ring, so theres that.

Oh and before i forget. What was the resolution standard in 2001? Ill give a hint, it wasnt a 4 digit number x 4 digit number. If someone has trouble with that one, think of how the internet looked in those days...and netscape.

This game is broken at the core.You can add lots of interesting things with patches but the core will never be changed.And when the core is broken,patches won't do shit.

I know it's pointless to write to you, but the core of the game is the combat. And it is the most flawless part of the game and the reason so many people still play it and not one of the competitors, which are now a pretty good number. Don't read "no one plays the competitors" or "everyone prefers D3". It's not what I said.

@sketchfactor
No, competitive PvP is in the works with no ETA.

@JoeShmo
You have great arguments many of which I do support, but many others we've discussed on these forums since before the game's beta. I can't give you a proper answer in here because this is not the place (nor do I have the time right now, sadly). Instead, you bringing valid arguments into our forum threads would make the community much better and you'll see the other side of the coin.

My slightly sarcastic remark was mostly because everything that has been done to D3 the negative part of the fanbase dismisses as "should've been there from the start", which is starting to become quite the hook for them. Paragon levels are unique, the way crafting is done is unique, the skill system is quite unique in its design. Yet these are all things that "should've been there from release (even when some were)". If it wasn't for player nostalgia the game would've headed in a completely different direction imo, but fans just can't let go and Blizzard prefers to listen instead of to improvise and innovate. Funny thing innovation. Everyone wants it but no one likes it when its implemented in a sequel. Ruins the franchise.

Anyway. My point was, stick around and maybe you'll see our crowd isn't so bad.

Oh, mob density was never a problem in D2 because 95% of players farmed about 10 mobs. And in D1? That was 20 years ago, come on.

Anyway. My point was, stick around and maybe you'll see our crowd isn't so bad.

I'm gonna add to overneathe's awesome response and say: diablo3 in everyone's mind was supposed to be something extraordinary and grand. I understand that "some" people don't like the way it is now/was at the begining. But the time is past, the game is 1 years old and its time to either play the game and have fun with it, dislike it all you want and move on, or if you are still playing and think it could use improvements give feedback on the forums!
Whether you play it or not, like it or not. and if the game gets to a point that it only has 10k players on SC and HC combined, the game is still being a fun ARPG for those 10k players and its serving the purpose. =)

This game is broken at the core.You can add lots of interesting things with patches but the core will never be changed.And when the core is broken,patches won't do shit.

I know it's pointless to write to you, but the core of the game is the combat. And it is the most flawless part of the game and the reason so many people still play it and not one of the competitors, which are now a pretty good number. Don't read "no one plays the competitors" or "everyone prefers D3". It's not what I said.

@sketchfactor
No, competitive PvP is in the works with no ETA.

@JoeShmo
You have great arguments many of which I do support, but many others we've discussed on these forums since before the game's beta. I can't give you a proper answer in here because this is not the place (nor do I have the time right now, sadly). Instead, you bringing valid arguments into our forum threads would make the community much better and you'll see the other side of the coin.

My slightly sarcastic remark was mostly because everything that has been done to D3 the negative part of the fanbase dismisses as "should've been there from the start", which is starting to become quite the hook for them. Paragon levels are unique, the way crafting is done is unique, the skill system is quite unique in its design. Yet these are all things that "should've been there from release (even when some were)". If it wasn't for player nostalgia the game would've headed in a completely different direction imo, but fans just can't let go and Blizzard prefers to listen instead of to improvise and innovate. Funny thing innovation. Everyone wants it but no one likes it when its implemented in a sequel. Ruins the franchise.

Anyway. My point was, stick around and maybe you'll see our crowd isn't so bad.

Oh, mob density was never a problem in D2 because 95% of players farmed about 10 mobs. And in D1? That was 20 years ago, come on.

Yes combat is the most flawless part of the game,but playing the same build again and again does not help.I love Fot:TC for example when playing as monk,but i would really like to give things like deadly reach a try.(And by try i mean something more than using it once every 15 or so seconds just for a dps buff)

Combat is the most flawless part,but it still ain't something exceptional.

And combat isn't the core.Itemization is the core.And you don't make itemization good by adding a few BOA items and targeted legendaries etc etc.

The devs have no idea about itemization.One blue post during the beginning of d3 says that legendaries are not supposed to be the driving force and perfectly rolled rares are supposed to be better while another one before 1.0.4 says that legendaries are in fact supposed to be the driving force.(Which is clearly the case if you look now)And rares are suddenly shit except the super perfect ones of course which are sold in billions.

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Grinding Gear Games (Company that produced POE): "These are great Ideas, we will use them for sure as they are clearly what the player base is looking for."

Blizzard: "While we agree that this game needs re-working and that these ideas could help the future of this game, we have no plans to listen to our fan-base at this time."

The devs have no idea about itemization.One blue post during the beginning of d3 says that legendaries are not supposed to be the driving force and perfectly rolled rares are supposed to be better while another one before 1.0.4 says that legendaries are in fact supposed to be the driving force.(Which is clearly the case if you look now)And rares are suddenly shit except the super perfect ones of course which are sold in billions.

This only happened because the community made it clear they want Legendaries to be BiS. Initially they weren't supposed to be.

Also, the combat really is exceptional in the game. It is matched by absolutely no other.

I really, really don't like this argument. It encourages mediocrity, and makes excuses for developers that shouldn't be made in the first place. The whole point of making a sequel is to do things better out the gate, the first time. To exaggerate for dramatic effect, this is like suggesting it would be fine for Titan to have 90% of the servers unplayable release day, because World of Warcraft had trouble with it for months, so it's completely fine!

Oh, wait, people do make that argument when Blizzard releases new games and is woefully unprepared for the traffic they know is coming. So... uh... people are ridiculous? I don't know. Go ahead! Embrace mediocrity!